Experimental data often contains curious and unexplained results. In the course of experimental investigations of Raman shifting and the Co:MgF₂ laser, results were obtained which would not have been expected from the typical theoretical picture. In the case of Raman shifting, the forward Stokes conversion was found to depend upon the pump bandwidth. Numerical modeling suggests that coupling between the Stokes directions may be the root cause of the phenomena. In the case of the Co:MgF₂ laser, the laser output was observed to have large amounts of spectral structure. This amount of structure should not be expected in a room temperature vibronically broadened laser. Further experiments point to adsorbed water vapor for the cause of the structure, and this hypothesis is supported by a numerical model. Additionally, a unique method for treating the effects of arbitrary gain distribution on the propagation of the lowest order laser cavity mode is expanded to cover new distributions and new coordinate systems. An extension to parametric gains is also made. The extensions are then used to predict unstable regions in real laser cavities. These instabilities are observed in diffraction calculations. Guidelines for observing this intriguing result are presented.

Experimental data often contains curious and unexplained results. In the course of experimental investigations of Raman shifting and the Co:MgF₂ laser, results were obtained which would not have been expected from the typical theoretical picture. In the case of Raman shifting, the forward Stokes conversion was found to depend upon the pump bandwidth. Numerical modeling suggests that coupling between the Stokes directions may be the root cause of the phenomena. In the case of the Co:MgF₂ laser, the laser output was observed to have large amounts of spectral structure. This amount of structure should not be expected in a room temperature vibronically broadened laser. Further experiments point to adsorbed water vapor for the cause of the structure, and this hypothesis is supported by a numerical model. Additionally, a unique method for treating the effects of arbitrary gain distribution on the propagation of the lowest order laser cavity mode is expanded to cover new distributions and new coordinate systems. An extension to parametric gains is also made. The extensions are then used to predict unstable regions in real laser cavities. These instabilities are observed in diffraction calculations. Guidelines for observing this intriguing result are presented.

en_US

dc.type

text

en_US

dc.type

Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic)

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dc.subject

Physics, Optics.

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thesis.degree.name

Ph.D.

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thesis.degree.level

doctoral

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thesis.degree.discipline

Graduate College

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thesis.degree.discipline

Optical Sciences

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thesis.degree.grantor

University of Arizona

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dc.contributor.advisor

Peyghambarian, Nasser

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dc.identifier.proquest

9923170

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dc.identifier.bibrecord

.b39471755

en_US

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